WhatsApp started testing a Picture-in-Picture mode on its Messaging platform back in October, allowing users to play videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram directly within WhatsApp. The company is now seeding the feature to the stable version of its messaging app on all Android phones, thus adding a second floating window from within the app.
The Picture-in-PIcture or PiP mode will be ported to all Android devices running the latest version 2.18.380 of WhatsApp, updated and installed from the GooglePlay Store.
The new feature enables users to watch videos in a floating window while using the app’s other chat features simultaneously. This means users can open video links from Facebook, YouTube Instagram and other platforms directly on their WhatsApp screen. Prior to this, WhatsApp redirected users to external pages and apps when clicking on video links from Youtube, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram.
The PiP mode plays the video at the top half of the chat screen which users can click on to access it on full screen. The video can also be accessed by scrolling through other chats and group threads irrespective of the source thread it played from.
Besides this, WhatsApp also appears to be working on a host of interesting features including the introduction of QR code and Add contact features. The former will allow users to scan QR codes to get another’s contact information while the latter will allow the users to choose the country and add a contact number to WhatsApp.